Monday, January 9, 2012

Ron Paul and Social Justice

¡Hola mi Gente!

Today is the first day at my new gig…

Many people have rightly criticized Ron Paul’s
perspective on social justice (while many others, from right and left, have
sucked on his cock), but what many don’t understand is that in Ron Paul’s
looney libertarian vision of a society, government has no business in advancing
social justice. Paul’s perspective leaves him incapable of envisioning social
justice.

* * *

We were taught... that man’s business on
this earth was to look out for himself. That was the ethic of the jungle...
Take care of yourself, no matter what may become of your fellow man. Thousands
of years ago, the question was asked, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ That question
has never yet been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society.

Yes, I am my brother’s keeper. I am under a
moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by any maudlin sentimentality but
by the higher duty I owe myself. What would you think me if I were capable of
seating myself at a table and gorging myself with food and saw about me the
children of my fellow beings starving to death?

In previous posts, I have looked
at justice in general terms, not the role that governments play in promoting
it. For the rest of this post, I will explore the idea of social justice -- the
idea that we can create a set of social and political institutions that ensures
the just distribution of benefits and costs throughout a society.

The idea of social justice first
emerged in the late 19th century, and stood at the heart of political debate
throughout the 20th. It requires that the state become much more involved in
justice than earlier times. It was also a controversial idea: whereas only a
few extremists have attacked the idea of justice, social justice has been
ridiculed, mainly by critics from the libertarian right, who view it as a
transgression against personal freedom, especially the economic freedom they
feel a market economy requires. This is what Ron Paul calls liberty. In Paul’s
demented social view, Jim Crow and slavery would have been done away with by
The Market.

Let’s look at these attacks more
closely. When Ron Paul recently yelped, “We’re all Austrians now,” he was
referring to the works of critics such as the Austrian economist Friedrich
von Hayek who argued that there was a fundamental error involved in
talking about social justice in the first place. According to Hayek (and many
self-loathing neocons that call themselves “libertarians”), justice is a
consequence of individual actions. An
action is unjust when it violates a general societal rule that allows members
of a society to interact with one another. For example, theft is unjust because
it violates a rule protecting property. If we look at how resources -- money,
property, employment opportunities, and so forth -- are distributed across a
society, we cannot describe this as either just or unjust, say libertarians, since
it is a consequence not from the actions of a single mediator, but from the
actions and decisions of millions of separate individuals, none of whom
intended to create this or any other outcome in particular.

To be fair, Hayek is right to
point out that “social distribution” cannot be attributed to any single
distributing agency or entity, given the complexity of any contemporary postmodern
society. But Hayek’s fundamental error -- what he overlooks -- is that the
distributive pattern we observe around us does, generally speaking, depends on
the institutions that have been socially created , consciously or not. For
example, the rules governing property and contracts, the system of taxation,
the level of public expenditure on health care, education, housing, and
employment policies, etc. -- these are all institutions that have been shaped
and can be changed by political decision, and so if we leave things as they
are, that is the same as accepting the existing distribution of resources. In
addition (let’s not get all “new”), we can certainly understand what the effect
of a proposed institutional change would be.

To that extent, the distribution
of resources across society -- who gets what benefits, how wide the spread of
incomes will be, etc. -- is something that, at least in a democracy, is under
our collective control. It is perfectly reasonable, then, to ask what social
justice would ask us to do.

But Hayek isn’t done yet. His
criticism begs the question of whether
social justice is something we should pursue. Hayek’s second claim is that,
in attempting to make the distribution of resources match up to justice, we
would destroy economic freedom and in that way kill the goose that lays the
golden eggs. For the sake of argument, let’s assume Hayek is right when he
claims that a market economy is the most effective way of organizing production
and trade (this is not an a
priori, by the way), and that any alternative would involve a reduction
of the living standards in economically advanced societies. The question then
is whether striving for social justice means turning our back on the market
economy, or whether it’s possible to pursue social justice through a market
economy, one shaped in the right way and that has other social institutions
working alongside it.

These questions, my friends, and
how they have been answered, are at the core of today’s “Great Recession.”

In this respect, we need to look
at different ways of interpreting the idea of social justice. The most radical
version, touted by Marxists and some communitarian anarchists, reduces social
justice to the principles of equality and need. A just society, from this
perspective, is one in which each member contributes to the best of his or her
ability, but resources are distributed according to need, with any resulting
surplus distributed evenly. There is no consideration here for the idea that
people need incentives, or deserve material rewards for making their
contribution. The question here becomes, could such a society exist?

On a small scale, it undoubtedly
has. In addition, China has definitely put a crimp on the notion that communism
has died. Still, the question remains whether a large society could successfully practice social justice in
this form. On a tangential note, the next time your Ron Paul robot starts
blabbering about this kook, ask him to name one
instance in which a society has ever
existed under libertarian principles.

::crickets::

There is, however, a less
radical view of social justice which has been embraced by many democratic
socialists and contemporary liberals. From this point of view, social justice
requires the equal distribution of some social benefits -- especially equal
rights of citizenship such as voting and freedom of speech. It requires that
some benefits be distributed on the basis of need, so that everyone is
guaranteed an adequate income, access to health care and housing, etc. However,
it also allows for other resources to be distributed unequally, so long as
there is equal opportunity for people
trying to acquire a larger share. These inequalities may be justified on the
grounds of merit (“desert”), or on the grounds that by giving people material
incentives to work hard and produce goods that other people want, all of
society benefits.

Arguably, the most influential
interpretation of this form of social justice was developed by John Rawls who
argued in his Theory
of Justice that a just society must fulfill three conditions. First, it
must give each member the most extensive of basic liberties that is consistent
with the same liberty for everyone else. Second, social positions possessing
greater advantages, higher paying jobs, for example, must be open to everyone
on the basis of equality of opportunity. Third, inequalities of income and
wealth are justified when they can be shown to benefit the least advantaged
members of society -- in other words when they provide incentives that raise society’s
productivity and in that way allow more resources to be channeled to those at
the bottom of the heap.

Rawls’s theory of justice
obviously makes room for a market economy. Rawls’s third principle allows for
the possibility for people to keep at least part of the gain they make through
producing goods and services for the market if they are going to be
sufficiently motivated to work hard and use their talents in the most
productive way. This demolishes Hayek’s claim that social justice and market
freedom are mutually exclusive. On the other hand, a market economy governed by
Rawlsian principles would look completely different from the economic systems
of modern liberal democracies.

For one, Rawls’ idea of equality
of opportunity is radical. It is not enough that positions of advantage should
be given to those who can be shown to be better qualified to hold them. It must
also be true that applicants have had an equal opportunity to become qualified. What this means is
that from the moment of birth, people of equal talent and motivation should be
afforded the same opportunities in education and elsewhere.

Obviously, this is not the case.
Furthermore, Rawls’ third principle, often called the difference
principle, allows inequalities only when they can be shown to benefit
the worst off of society. In actual practice this would mean that governments
would set tax rates so that benefits were continually redistributed to benefit
all of society. Although most democratic societies have so-called progressive
tax structures, they fall far short of Rawls’ requirement.

My own view is that a theory of
social justice should retain Rawls’ first two principles -- equal liberty and
equality of opportunity -- but replace the difference principle with two
others. The first is that of a guaranteed social minimum, understood as a set
of needs that must be met in order to assure every citizen a decent life. This
minimum is not fixed, but changes over time and within different societies. An
enduring and current debate, for example, is the consideration whether health
care is a right or a privilege. The second principle is one of merit (desert).
Inequalities of income and wealth should be proportional, measured by their
success in producing goods and services other people need and want.

As in Rawls’ theory, these
principles don’t conflict with a market economy -- at least not in the sense
that it entails getting rid of it. However, they do require the construction
and maintenance of an extensive web of interlocking social safety nets, as well
as a regulatory and flexible legal system within which the market economy works
so that there is a real link between what
people contribute and what they receive as compensation for that
contribution.

Much of the economic turmoil we
face today is a direct result of decades of lax governmental oversight combined
with an almost slavish devotion toward so-called free market principles. In
fact, there is no such thing as a free market. The market couldn’t exist
without the social institutions (legal, infrastructure, etc.). Therefore, it is
important for people to think about these matters, to question the validity of the
apostles of the market.

Of course this would require a
real change to the way capitalist countries operate, since the existing rules
of property and inheritance allow people to reap huge rewards by virtue of
luck, inherited wealth, corporate position, etc. -- factors all unrelated to
their contribution to society. What most conservatives and libertarians alike fear
is that the pursuit of social justice will take us towards a form of market
socialism in which the means are owned by those work in them rather than by
outside shareholders, so that the profits can be shared among the actual
producers. I don't think this is something to be feared but rather something to
be pursued. This is not the communist utopia espoused by Marxists and other
radical socialists, since it also allows for harder working and more talented
individuals to reap the fruits of their labor. Still, it takes us far away from
the failed political agenda of the present, at least as far as liberal democracies
are concerned.

Social justice, like democracy,
will always be unfinished project. It is up to us to envision what a just
society should look like, without losing our pragmatism nor lose ourselves in
fantasies. I believe, like many, that the struggle for social justice has been
sabotaged by global developments that place the market before the concerns of
people -- before the concerns of justice. It strikes me as the ultimate irony
to hear others go into the “people are so stupid rants” without paying
attention to the larger, more powerful forces at play. What good is
intelligence or critical thinking in the face of a global movement in which
social justice is scrapped in favor of the bottom line? This is why Ron Paul
and many of his conservative brethren are dangerous: they don’t have principles, they are reactionary ideologues.

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My life experiences have led me to strive to help others move their lives in a positive direction, exploring opportunities that would otherwise be closed to them. I like to think I sit at the crossroads of the dialectic between knowledge and action. I hope that what transpires here is reflective of my beliefs.